Social Science : Human Geography

Contemporary migration involves a dramatic paradox. Although much of what is considered international or transnational migration today transforms people of a wide range of social standings in the emigration countries into laborers at the bottom social and economic ranks of the immigration countries, millions of individuals worldwide seek to migrate internationally. International Migration, Social Demotion, and Imagined Advancement argues that this paradox cannot be explained for as long as common preconceptions about immigrants? economic betterment thwart even questioning why individuals who are not threatened by famine or war willingly pursue their demotion abroad. Recognizing immigrants? decline as such, this book proposes viewing contemporary migration as socioglobal mobility. Revolving around an ethnographic study of the Albanian "emigration" in Greece, International Migration, Social Demotion, and Imagined Advancement finds that imaginaries of the world as a social hierarchy might lie at the roots of much of the contemporary international migration. As would-be emigrants perceive different countries in terms of distinct social stations in a global order, they resolve to put up with numerous social and material deprivations in the hope of advancing internationally. Immigrants are typically thought of as aliens in their de facto home societies, however, and that makes genuine advancement all but impossible. Erind Pajo is Assistant Researcher in Anthropology and Lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. more...

Price: $64.95

This book offers a new and rigorous approach to observational sociology that is grounded in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Throughout the authors encourage the reader to explore the social world at first hand, beginning with the immediate family context and then moving out into the public realm and organizational life. Examples of observational analysis are given with reference to topic areas such as family life, education, medicine, crime and deviance, and the reader is shown how to conduct their own inquiries, using methods and materials that are readily and ordinarily available. Drawing on both original material and published studies, Francis and Hester demonstrate how observational sociology can be carried out with an attention to detail typically overlooked by more traditional ethonographic approaches. more...

Price: $52.95

Do racial minorities in the United States assimilate to American values and institutions, or do they retain ethnic ties and cultures? In exploring the Japanese American experience, Lon Kurashige recasts this tangled debate by examining what assimilation and ethnic retention have meant to a particular community over a long period of time. more...

Price: $15.95

The Koreas delivers border-to-border coverage of North and South Korea, with chapters dedicated to history and geography, social and cultural customs, and economics and politics. With Russia and China as their neighbors to the north and 37,000 U.S. troops permanently stationed in the south, and with a history of occupation by powers like China, Mongolia, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States, Koreans have grown accustomed to living at the epicenter of world conflict. more...

Price: $70.00

This beautifully written book weaves reflections on anthropological fieldwork together with evocative meditations on a spectacular landscape as it takes us to the remote indigenous villages on the shore of Lake Titicaca, high in the Peruvian Andes. Ben Orlove brings alive the fishermen, reed cutters, boat builders, and families of this isolated region, and describes the role that Lake Titicaca has played in their culture. more...

Price: $15.95